1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a card identifying method and apparatus for determining genuineness or spuriousness of cards such as magnetic card, IC (integrated circuit) cards, optical cards or the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A magnetic card used in an automatic cash dispenser installed in a bank is conventionally composed of a base plate of a plastic material, and a magnetic stripe provided on a surface area of the plastic base plate. In use, the magnetic card is inserted into the cash dispenser and a customer (card user) inputs a cipher number with ten keys of a keyboard. The card identifying apparatus responds to the presence of the card to compare the inputted cipher number with data stored previously in the magnetic stripe of the card. In dependence on the result of the comparison, it is determined whether the inserted card is genuine (an authorized or legal card) or spurious (an unauthorized or illegal card) or whether the card user or holder is an unauthorized person.
The card identification mentioned above is however disadvantageous in that there is a probability of a legal card being illegally counterfeited. More specifically, a person who had a chance to get an original card of an authorized holder in some way may be in the position to read data written in the magnetic stripe of the card and transfer the data to a blank card and then return the original card to the authorized holder. In that case, two cards are present availably without being known by the authorized person.
In the case of other cards such as telephone cards and the like, a purchaser of the card may have a chance to prepare a number of copied cards from the purchased card.